Sewage rates in Alabama due to federal requirements

I was reading the news today when I was struck by this rather explosive headline: Alabama Residents Furious Over Possible Rate Increases: ‘If They Let This Stuff Happen They Are Going to Get the Biggest Riot the South Has Ever Seen’ It seems people are paying sewage and water bills from the city to the tune of $150 per month--and it's been threatened with big increases. What got me about the story, as far as KC is concerned is this: "Sewage and water rates (on average) have increased faster than inflation because the federal government has demanded that cities replace their “worn-out” sewer facilities to meet federal clean-water standards. When a federal judge forced Jefferson County to upgrade its outdated sewer system, officials decided to finance the project with bonds." Now, they did make a big mistake by taking out floating interest rate loans for the bonds but here's another big problem: "The sewage system was supposed to cost $300 million. However, since the project started in 1996, the costs have risen to $3.1 billion after various problems and a series of bond and derivatives deals fell through in 2008. Not surprisingly, a large amount of corruption was involved. JP Morgan Securities and two of its former directors have been fined for trying to bribe to Jefferson County employees and politicians in a bid to win business financing for the sewer project. Six former Jefferson County commissioners have been found guilty of accepting bribes, along with 15 other state officials." Hopefull nothing remotely similar will happen here in little ol' KCMO with the new sewers we're supposed to be getting. Here's hoping. Enjoy your weekend, y'all. Link to original article: http://news.yahoo.com/alabama-residents-furious-over-rate-increases-let-stuff-202403568.html

Leave our danged airport alone

Here we go again. The front page article on the Star today is on the city's ideas of tinkering--meaning tearing down--our very functional and popular 3-terminal airport and replacing it with a one-terminal one. Ai-yi-yi. WHAT DO WE HAVE TO DO TO KILL THIS DESTRUCTIVE, WASTEFUL, UNAPPRECIATED IDEA? Not only is it a great-looking, still contemporary airport but WE LIKE THE WAY WE CAN GET FROM OUR CARS, STRAIGHT TO THE GATES AND ON THE PLANES. Leave the damn thing alone. city aviation director Mark VanLoh said in an interview. “It’s a mess” and that "Airline mergers have resulted in one crowded terminal at KCI and two that are half-empty. Multiple security checkpoints require nearly 500 screeners, hundreds more than other airports need. Environmental contamination and antiquated heating and cooling systems can’t be fixed without new construction. When people ask whether a new terminal is the best way, VanLoh responds, 'It’s the only way. We’ve tried. We’ve remodeled.'" To which I reply "hogwash." You can't tell me replacing old heating and cooling systems--which would also be far more efficient due to far newer technology--would be more expensive than tearing down a building and starting all over again. That cannot possibly make sense financially or logically. As for the traffic at the terminals? Here's a thought--put the busiest airlines at the two end terminals--A and C--and fill all the rest of the spaces--beginning with B, of course--in the rest of the spaces. Fill B completely, with all the little airlines possible, then go out from there to the busier airlines. It's a balance. The fact is, we all know, we like our terminals and to tear them down would be wasteful and then, building yet another, new one in its place would also be wasteful. Let's spend our money on all the other things we need like, oh, I don't know, how about repairing all the sewer and pipe lines across the city? There are still 2 very significant leaks on Southwest Trafficway, just South of 31st Street that have been putting out pretty good quantities of water for months now. Here's another idea: How about somehow cleaning the water of Brush Creek so it isn't always and forever a sewer? Here's yet another: The bridges and streets are yet more infrastructure that need attention AND we've already gotten one big fine from the Federal Government because we've been slow on repairing them. What say we avoid yet another, additional, possibly bigger fine? Another, new, different airport when a) we like this one, b) it's very functional and effective, c) it's still attractive and finally, d) to bulldoze it would be grossly wasteful are clearly all reasons we should KEEP MCI AS IT IS. Leave the damn thing alone. Leave us alone. Go do other, productive and helpful work that we really need. Sheesh. Let this idea die a quick death, once and for all. Please. Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3276094/like-it-or-not-kci-needs-to-change.html

Another reason the Mayor's "Schools First" program hasn't got a chance

From The Kansas City Star this morning :

KC’s sewer upgrade approved

Under the agreement, Kansas City will pay a federal civil penalty of $600,000 for violating state and federal clean-water laws.

Kansas City also will spend $1.6 million on a project to implement sewer connections for income-eligible residential property owners who elect to close their septic tanks and connect to the public sewer.

Rates will still rise quickly if a proposed agreement between the city and the Environmental Protection Agency is finalized, but not as precipitously as if the city had been forced to complete the project in 15 years.

Good luck getting even one more tax passed after the first 15% rate in sewer taxes rises, let alone two, as the Mayor wants for his "Schools First" program, once this begins.

Advice to "the Funk" and the Squirt: forget "Schools First". Forget it now. Don't ever bring it up again, for your sake. Hope you can let it die a quiet death. (It won't but, hey, you can hope it, anyway).

Oh, and, hey, while we're at it, thanks for not doing anything about this when you first got in office so we could avoid that fine. It's another $600,000.00 you cost us.

Great leadership there, as we've pointed out before.

Note to Ed Ford and the City Council of Kansas City, Missouri

I don't think I'm being presumptuous here by pretending to, singlehandedly, speak for the citizens of the entire city but I think I'm safe in sending you this following note:

After the City Council's Planning and Zoning Committee passed a preliminary resolution this week this week in favor of the new Tomahawke Ridge housing community, North of the city, we, the citizens of Kansas City, whom you are supposed to represent, want you to know

WE DO NOT WANT THE TOMAHAWKE RIDGE DEVELOPMENT TO GO FORWARD.

And we don't want it for the following reasons, at minimum:

--It contributes to sprawl;

--It's too far from the city;

--It weakens the city's core further;

--It is 25 miles from the city's core;

--It will be difficult, at best, to give it fire protection;

--Our own Fire Department doesn't recommend it;

--The City Planning Department doesn't recommend it;

--The City can't even clear our streets now, with what we've got, let alone if we add 300+ more homes;

--The City can't even tend to our own street maintenance now, with what we've got, let alone by adding all these more miles of streets;

--The City can't even tend to our sewage system now, with what we've got, let alone by adding all this much more sewers, drains and pipes.

And that's just for starters.

We don't want it.

It isn't prudent, to use an old phrase from Saturday Night Live.

But we're serious.

And we mean it.


Thank you,

The citizens of Kansas City, Missouri

I wonder how long this is going to take

From Summer June 09

Apparently, over the weekend, a water main blew on Southwest Trafficway at 39th Terrace, between 39th Street and Westport Road. For those of us who travel this, we know it all too well.

They were busy shutting off the water when it happened but check out this picture Monday evening and now, again, Tuesday evening.

Plate over hole?

Check.

Barricades?

Check.

Warning cones?

Check.

Big electric sign to get people over, to one last open lane?

Check.

City crews working on it so the street gets open quickly since it's a major thoroughfare?

Oh, heck no.

So as one writer on Tony's KC blog wrote today, "we have cool sports stadiums for losers, a train station but no trains, a war memorial that loses millions and a hip new downtown entertainment district that will probably last another year or two. Who cares about streets, bridges and sewers? The real estate crowd need to unload some more downtown lofts before KC files bankruptcy."

I'd add that we also have a City Council and Mayor who want to hand over 20.5 million dollars to a developer--on the front-end of the project--to develop a 30-acre eyesore in the worst real estate market in 70 years, since the Great Depression, when we don't need more commercial or retail sites, but we don't have good streets or sewers and other infrastructure.

But I digress.

The question is, how long 'til this little mess is cleaned up on the Trafficway?

Don't hold your breath.